Tag Archives: Farming

Click this photo to read the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) initial reaction to the publication of the consultation

Defra (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) is seeking views on proposals for future agricultural policy in England. This a golden opportunity for farmers, those associated with farming and food production as well those concerned with our rural environment to have their say on creating a farming policy which works for the farm industry, rural communities and improves the environment.

My ward covers some 11,000 acres. Much of this area is set to agriculture and I think it’s appropriate that I comment from time to time on the issues facing our farming community. Here is an article, published by the CPRE. It comments on the post UK Brexit situation. I agree with the CPRE when they say:

“Here is a recent article from CPRE. We may delight in the countryside, but most people have lost their connection with farming. Some simply have no idea where their food comes from. Farms grow bigger (we have lost 34,000 farms in the last decade); soil quality declines; nature is pushed to the margins. We can do better. CPRE is certainly not proposing an end to public funding. Farming is too important to be left at the mercy of market forces – important not only for the food it produces, but for wildlife, flood protection, carbon capture and, yes, safeguarding the matchless beauty of our countryside”.

Post-Brexit politics looks set to be dominated by years of hard, tedious trade negotiations and arguments over what to do with over 40 years of EU-inspired legislation. The business of ‘getting back control’ may be pretty dull.

But one area of policy enthuses both sides in the referendum campaign: forging national agricultural policies to replace the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Britain’s countryside has been shaped by farming, and farming since the Second World War has been largely shaped by public policy. UK farmers currently receive just over £3 billion a year in financial support, but both the overall sum and how it is spent are largely determined in Brussels. Now we must decide how, and how much, to support British farmers.